


what would i pay

by olavidalo



Category: One Direction (Band), The Little Mermaid (1989)
Genre: Alternate Timeline, British colonialism, Gen, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 18:42:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olavidalo/pseuds/olavidalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only humans would be so foolish as to build their monuments so very near destruction. The Little Mermaid AU*.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what would i pay

**Author's Note:**

> *but only sort of??
> 
> I'm not Pakistani and I don't speak Urdu so I'm likely missing an insulting amount of context here :S
> 
> But here goes:
> 
> I. The coastline of modern-day Pakistan is bordered by the Arabian Sea; that's where this all takes place  
> II. jadogar – magician  
> III. Maharani - high queen, wife of the Maharaja; or sovereign ruler in her own right, depending  
> IV. samandar - sea, ocean; 'son of Samandar' would be, in this universe, a stiff way of saying merman  
> V. ghadari - traitors; in this universe, the coastal people of Pakistan originally came from the sea, but gave all that up to become fishermen. Ergo: traitors  
> VI. redscales - white British colonials. (Zayn's mum did something of a reverse Ariel here)  
> VII. thrice-dried, pink-face, four-arm – insults  
> VIII. thingstheyarecalled - feet, toes, legs; drywaters - the sky; drycurrent - wind; dredger - fisherman, sailor; below-surface suffocation – drowning  
> IX. Title from "Part of Your World"  
> X. All lies. Unbeta'ed, unbritpicked, unpossible lies.

The Prince notices him immediately.

'Hullo,' he says, pleasantly, and a bit loosely, ducking sideways under a very tall human's arm. 'Are you lost? The Maharani's already retired to her chambers.'

 _Who?_ Zayn says, dazed, still overwhelmed by the stench of dead fish and the sight of the Prince, but of course--

The Prince furrows his brow just slightly, smile still dazzling as ever. 'Sorry, what was that?' he asks. A loud noise splatters all over the floor -- Zayn tries not to flinch -- and all of the redscales let out a huge cheer. Their twirling becomes ferociously dizzying: Zayn really feels as though he might vomit.

The Prince takes him by the arm, a bit roughly, leads him out through a small side door. 'I can scarcely hear you,' he murmurs against Zayn's ear, voice warm and slightly wet, from whatever he was drinking. The sounds of the hall fade behind them, till the only thing Zayn can hear is the Prince's soft breathing.

He can hardly keep upright on his thingstheyarecalled alone, never mind with some fully grown _four-arm_ tugging on him quite a deal more roughly than he'd like. He almost bites his lip to keep from crying out - and then he remembers that no one can hear him anyway, and lets himself complain all he wants.

 _This isn't exactly the reception I was expecting_ , he says, at the Prince's back. _Especially since I saved your life_. Old Jadogar never bothered to warn him about something like this happening.

The Prince drags him inside an open-windowed alcove, far out of sight from the hall. The waves eagerly leap up the cliffs at Zayn's approach.

In a few hundred years or so, this land will be swallowed up entirely by the sea. Only humans would be so foolish as to build their monuments so very near destruction.

The shell Jadogar gave Zayn glows hot like sunstone against his neck the longer he stands this close to the sea. He ignores it, staring long at the sun slowly sinking in the drywaters.

'Now,' says the Prince, sounding a lot more sober and a lot less friendly, 'might I ask what a son of Samandar is doing on land?'

So he does recognise him! Zayn's disappointment disappears in a breath. In the next, he rushes forward, aiming to take the Prince by the hand. But the Prince does not welcome his touch as he once did - instead he shoves him roughly back against the stones, glowering so fiercely his eyes near drip with hatred.

Zayn searches the Prince's face for any sort of recognition, swallowing silently when he finds none. He looks nothing at all like the boy Zayn swam inland for.

If anything, he looks more like the redscale dredger who'd tried to hook Safaa.

'Are you here to try and lure the Maharani out of the agreement?' says the Prince, in a low voice. 'You'll never succeed, you know. She knows her people can't handle another war. Especially with your accursed father playing his tricks on Punjabi and Briton both.'

It was anger that helped small, sweet-faced Safaa kill the dredger. And it is anger that helps push Zayn up onto his thingstheyarecalled. He'd been so busy worrying that he'd vomit down the Prince's front that it's almost easy, with the fresh smell of the sea washing over him for the first time in days, to lean up and press their lips together.

 _Pink-face four-arm_ , he murmurs inaudibly, and tugs the Prince closer, deepens the kiss when he makes a surprised noise. _How dare you insult my father. How_ dare _you forget me_.

The shell grows colder and colder until, all at once, there's a thin rivulet of water trickling down the front of his shirt. Zayn feels the chain around his neck go slack and slide off. Something slick and electric shoots up his throat just as a familiar, deep throb sets in below-waist - and Zayn pulls back, realising how very badly he'd been fooled.

Jadogar never planned to let him stay up here - he just wanted to drive Zayn away. His parents had probably dispatched watchers to all parts of the kingdom just to find him. And a person of Jadogar's power wouldn't have much trouble taking advantage of unwatched borders.

Perhaps he'd even hoped to compromise the redscale Prince, with the promise of an alluring seamare. Who would promptly suffocate, three days above-surface.

The Prince is staring at him in silent shock, lips red and wet. Zayn remembers how heavy he'd been, how he'd clung when Zayn had been ready to slip away below-surface. How gentle his smile had been when Zayn'd licked the landsalt off his lips.

Zayn wipes his mouth, laughing quietly as his voice grows, humiliated up to his gills. How Jadogar had overestimated him.

How he'd overestimated himself.

The Prince's face has gone cold and suspicious again. 'I won't tell you where the Maharani's room is, if that's what you're after. And I won't tell you my name, either.'

Ah. Of course.

The ghadari have always told the redscales they'll be vanished into the waters the minute they give up their names to wave-dwellers. It's a lie, of course - being nameless would hardly provide sufficient protection against below-surface suffocation - but it's one only seacorpses can correct.

Zayn hadn't thought the Prince would be so foolish as to believe so flimsy a lie, but then - Zayn hadn't thought a lot of things.

He rubs out the landgrit that's somehow gotten into his eyes. 'My mother was right about you,' he says, hoarsely. _The people I come from are especially miserable_ , she'd told him, again and again, all too familiar with his heaving sighs. _Not a one of them is worth what you'd have to give up._

The Prince blinks - and, too late, his face dawns with realisation. 'You're--' he says, stepping forward. 'It was _you_.' Zayn shakes his head, not trusting his voice. The Prince grabs him by the arms. 'No, it _was_ you,' he says, voice cracking neatly in half. 'I heard you. You--you saved my life.'

'For what little a redscale's life is worth,' Zayn sneers, and pushes him off. The Prince's face falls.

An enormous crack of thunder sounds. Zayn looks out at the darkening drywaters, the golden flashes below-surface, the beautiful black waves. The gulls are crying out his name.

Already he can feel his muscles shifting and lengthening, the bones changing back to normal. He bites his lip, hard, so he won't cry out, and forces himself to stay upright. It's not exactly a pleasant experience. But he will bear it; he deserves nothing less, for betraying his people.

'I looked for you,' the Prince is saying, so foolish and unaware, 'I searched all up and down the coast. I wanted to--I want to thank you, properly.' He watches Zayn rip away at his trousers. 'Wh--will I see you again?'

'Hopefully not,' Zayn murmurs, swiftly unbuttoning his stiff, thrice-dried shirt. The Prince makes a soft noise. Probably thinking about how little redscale affectations suit him.

An urgent drycurrent howls into the alcove, knocking the Prince back so suddenly he stumbles to the floor. Zayn ignores him, glaring at the all too slowly thickening scales about his waist, the gradual webbing of his thingstheyarecalled. He doesn't have _time_ for this.

Thunder strikes the middle of the sea: the waves shriek out in pain. Zayn feels it like a hook to the heart. 'I'm right here, don't worry,' he soothes, in-tongue, and sees the Prince jump, out of the corner of his eye. No doubt he thinks Zayn is trying to curse him.

'They'll kill you, you know,' he says, in-tongue, pleased, somehow, that the Prince of the redscales should look so pink, 'not even the ghadari will suffer thieves for long. Doesn't matter to me, of course - you can kill each other for all I--'

'My name is Liam,' says the Prince, softly. Zayn shuts his mouth with a click. 'Please come back for me.'

His -- _legs_ , his legstheyarecalled are properly thick by now. Not as sharp as he'd like - even Waliyha would laugh at his form -- but the sea will help him out. So long as he gets out there before Jadogar hurts her any further.

'Prince Liam,' he says, hoisting himself up onto the thick sill with some difficulty. He stares down at the waters, sunless and endless and _his_. 'I swear to you by all that is beneath and all that is above that I will never again break the surface so long as you shall live.'

He means to leave it at that - but he turns back at the last moment.

It turns out that the Prince of the redscales looks rather beautiful, heartbroken.

And Zayn says, before he can stop himself: 'You'll have to show your gratitude some other way.'

He dives for home, Prince Liam's response lost to the drycurrents.

Jadogar is waiting for him.

**Author's Note:**

> idek


End file.
